


Die All, Die Merrily.

by Hyenada (orphan_account)



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Nazism/National Socialism/Etc., Oneshot, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11712009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Hyenada
Summary: The thing is, they grew up together.





	Die All, Die Merrily.

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [TMITHC_prompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TMITHC_prompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I'd like to see the aftermath of that moment where Klemm has a gun to Connolly's head.  
> How well did they get on before this? Rivals? Friends? Associates?  
> What's it like being around each other after?  
> Seeing each other after hours and there's tension? Confrontation? 
> 
> Anything goes.

 

"Would you have done it? Shot me, that is."

It's not what he wanted to hear, no. But one cannot dwell, not here, in this building, as busy as it is, as pitiless. He lets the Major go; for the Captain has no real choice in the matter, what with the man's three separate distinctions, a long history of success and renown against his own backdrop of relative vagueness. And sheer rank, of course. Connolly takes one step back, affronted but affirming, and Klemm gives him an odd sort of look as he passes through the door of the staff room.  _That_  one. 

That glance, the slight wrinkle of the nose, the way his eyes sort of focus anew after he blinks, the way his eyebrows raise upward and his head slightly -- that one, with that one meaning, that timeless unspoken response to that very same question,  _what else did you expect?_

And that's it, isn't it? 

What else did you expect?

 

 

That's it, the crux of their problem -- well, Connolly's problem, for Lawrence Klemm, half-German and ranked, well established and reliable despite his age,  _Nordic_  and excellent, does not appear to share the same dilemma and never really has. And that, right there, is the issue. 

There should be more. 

Because at the end of the day -- shouldn't there be?

There are a great number of things that are different about them; rank, the general content of their individual characters, ability, and skill, but they share more than they let on. That should mean something, to them, the Reich. 

The thing is, they grew up together.

It should mean something. They both embraced the Reich together, learned together, staggered out of NEPA-Brookville side-by-side together, enlisted together, spoke an oath of loyalty together. It's the kind of thing they always talked about, those once great men in shining uniforms. Brotherhood and comradeship. They're more than just soldiers they are  _brothers_ , knights of the Fatherland, united under National Socialism and the loyal character of their shared noble lineage. 

Loyalty, above all things. To each other, to the Reich, to the Fatherland. Loyalty. 

But of course, loyalty, in this infernal building, with its dark underground depths of lingering metallic aftertaste and the sharp sting of disinfectant, is a very, very different sort of breed.

 

 

Observe, Major Lawrence Klemm. 

His schooldays, much like Connolly's, consisted of the same mantra. Fourteen-years-old, he is in the small, ragged American branch of the Hitler Jugend before he's even back in school. Connolly, who is in the same class but almost a year younger, spends three months in the Jungvolk before he finds himself in the same Kameradschaften. By this point, 1946, the older boy is edging for Kammeradschaftsführer already, and he's got it by the time Connolly has made a full member. Not that there was much competition. Lanky, underdeveloped, Lawrence Klemm is one of five boys in their little unit of barely 70 other boys in the entirety of New York -- but to them, he might as well as be the shining prodigy, the same boy on the Hitler Youth poster. Perfect. Strong. Loyal.

Connolly, by comparison, is good but he's not great. He runs pretty good and marches pretty well but while the eyes of their older supervisors float across him, seeing no flaws, and they stick on Lawrence -- not because he's doing anything wrong, not because he's doing it right, but rather because he's doing better than right, he's doing _greater_. 

If Connolly is correct than Klemm is proper. It doesn't bother him. Why would it? Klemm brings honor to his unit, and Connolly, well he's not exactly doing anything differently. Good is still good enough.

When their local school reopens, it does so with most of it's prior school body missing and for the first time in what feels like forever, there are more desks than students. Klemm, as he's known now, and Connolly, they study in their uniforms and greet each other with crisp salutes. Most of their teachers embrace their new regime with open arms, some glance wearily at the armbands and metal pins, at Connolly's uniform, and sigh.

It all seems good, from the inside looking out. They match, sing songs,  _Wehrsport_. And it is. Live faithfully, fight bravely and die laughing. They believe it.

In two years, the Fatherland declares the formation of the Greater Western Reich -- that the Reichcommissariat for the Occupied American Territories joins the Canadian territories and the combined Economic Hemogy of South Africa shall unite under a new geographical region, exactly four months before the Japanese on the other end of the country declare that the Western Seaboard is now the Japanese Pacific States. Celebrations are held. Amongst them, Lawrence is named Platoon Commander when they transfer from the Jugend to the newly formed American Hitler Youth. 

Connolly gets a promotion too; their company leader takes one good look at the hole that Lawrence leaves behind and sort of just stuffs Connolly in the gap, as if to patch it up. 

It feels fine, seems okay. 

 

 

Nearly fifteen years on, Connolly wonders if it was just sheer force of hope or far-sightedness that made him think that he was running side-by-side with Lawrence Klemm, when in reality he was always half a step behind.

 

 

It's not the handgun that opens his eyes. It's Heydrich.

See, what they don't know is that Connolly's parents fled a massacre. Not an anti-Jewish one. No, this was an old fashioned invasion, blood on snow, dogs, scrambling from houses in the dead of night as the foreboding shapes of soldiers silhouette against the advancing tide of fire and gunshots. They know what it's like to be hunted, to hide, to crawl on their stomachs through dark woods while neighbors they thought they could trust just as easily turned a finger. They survive, in the end. Three suitcases and frozen overcoats, they reach New York packed in the back of someone's truck and start anew in the overflow of refugees. 

Nobody asks, nobody cares. Connolly gets dragged into the flow of things, passes a week of tests for a brand new school two years later, sixteen-years-old, to find himself doing the very same thing. His hair is dark and tightly cropped, he's here on a scholarship, and for all their sing-song of Hail Hitler and Live faithfully, it's exactly the same as the world that came before. This and before bleeds together at the edges, even though he pretends what came before never existed.

"Loyalty," Reinhard Heydrich tells Connolly, sat at a dinner table in some upstate restaurant that all of his yearly wages could never even hope to pay for, over a glass of too-expensive wine. "is an overcomplicated matter when one looks at the little details." 

The Oberst-Gruppenführer gives Connolly a piercing look.

"I will ask you, who are you more loyal too, the Reich or your immediate supervisor, what would you answer with?"

"The Fatherland, the Führer. The Reich."

It's an immediate response, made without thought or question. Heydrich raises his eyebrows. 

"So what is stopping you?" He asks.

 

 

Connolly cannot tell him.

He wishes he could tell Lawrence. Lawrence, who laments aimlessly about shooting  _that rat Semite_  dead in some dead end alleyway downtown just as easily as he hisses about the buildup of paperwork now that Raeder is out of the picture (not permanently, Connolly learns with a sick twist of the stomach, as he takes note of the tight curl of Lawrence's fists and the set, determined Jaw of the Obergruppenführer, at the office that is kept neat, waiting, and the owner of said office, somewhere, with a record that outdoes even Klemm -- save one minor hang up) and notes absently that Obergruppenführer Smith looks set to murder, what with the lack of results-

It's strained, the relationship between them. Connolly cannot look him in the face, and without the semi-permanent presence of Raeder, who was usually attached to the Obergruppenführer when he graced the office, Lawrence's attitude, his behavior, it feels far more oppressive than usual. The Obergruppenführer takes advantage of the man's vitriol and has him put on more offensive matters. Connolly, the Obergruppenführer just scolds. 

"You are not allowed to fail, Captain."

Connolly looks away, directs his gaze to the middle distance where there is nothing but empty air, jaw setting in mild displeasure, posture adjusting automatically. 

"Do you understand me?"

He understands that it will never be enough.

Lawrence smirks when they leave the room, easy, confident. The Obergruppenführer orders him to hold the office without so much of a blink.

Connolly wants to tell him. He wants to tell Klemm that it doesn't matter, to men like Smith. Loyalty is one thing but usefulness is another. He doesn't get to, in the end. The prisoner is dead and Joe Blake arrives in New York barely a day afterward; Connolly barely seels Klemm because he's busy with  _the blueblood_ , his words. Connolly manages to get a message out to the Oberst-Gruppenführer. VA Day arrives -- before the parade, the Obergruppenführer vanishes.

"Would you have shot Blake, do you think?" Connolly asks over their customary drink at the private officer's bar in their building. There's no other way, no other place, for them to really spend VA-Day. Not when they're technically on duty. 

Klemm makes a noise against the rim of his cup.

"If the Obergruppenführer had ordered me to, yes."

He gives Connolly a long, lasting look after he answers. Blinks.

"Your coffee has gone cold, Captain."

 

 

Lawrence is called upon the Smith residence in the middle of the night. Connolly knows this because he's there as backup, has to hold the office while the man is away, and what he learns has him using the secure line to Berlin with shaking fingers and panicking breaths. 

"He'll figure it out, Oberst-Gruppenführer. If Wegener-..."

"Prepare for my arrival," Heydrich declares over the line. "I will arrive in New York tomorrow."

 

 

"Would you like me to accompany you?"

"That wouldn't be necessary."

The Obergruppenführer's exit leaves his skin burning underneath his uniform, and when Connolly puts away the tea things, the tray, he watches the way Lawrence works for a few lingering, uncertain moments stood in an empty doorway. His eyes catch the man's handgun, half hidden inside its holster -- the Major likes to keep the clasp undone, for easier, quicker access -- the way it sort of drags at his attention, reflects light that isn't there, glimmers.

"The Colonel Wegener, he is to be released?" He asks, eventually. Guardedly.

Lawrence snorts. "Unfortunately, it would seem so." But then, he shrugs. "But a man like that, he's the walking dead. A traitor to the Reich shall have no other fate, in Berlin, America or otherwise."

The sound of the typewriter sliding across the page for a new paragraph echoes in the back of his head like the ring of a gunshot, and Connolly leaves that night without reply.

 

 

The Obergruppenführer isn't there in the morning.

If that isn't enough of a warning, he doesn't know what is.

"That's odd, isn't it?"

Klemm gives him that very same look again. For a moment, Connolly thinks back, fifteen years back, at a lanky blonde boy in a stiff HJ uniform and it eclipses head on with the broad set shoulders of a Major made from years of _something better_ , and he remembers the phone call the man took this morning. That Klemm was never good at lying -- to abrupt, to blunt.

"Is it?" The Major asks, short. Quick.

Isn't it? When the Obergruppenführer sidles in from behind like some kind of damn speak-of-the-devil study, takes over and leads the way to the roof, Connolly knows. He's smart enough, experienced enough, and he knows that only one of them is going to end up coming back down. That either way, this is the last time, the last interaction, he'll ever have with Klemm. 

Because only one of them is coming back down and on the off chance it is Connolly, the Major is still there, handgun within arm's reach. Awaiting orders.

 

 

Because it's obvious, isn't it. 

Live faithfully, fight bravely and die laughing.

 

 

(Connolly is very aware that he failed at all three.) 

 

 

_"Would you have done it? Shot me, that is."_

_"Oh," the Major mutters over coffee the morning after the episode, with the Obergruppenführer and the Semite. The edges of Lawrence's eyes are rough, dragged down by equal parts fatigue and the lingering aftereffects of Pervitin. "Yes."_

_Major Klemm blinks, as if it's somehow an offhand question. In some way remarkable._

_"If the Obergruppenführer had ordered me too, Captain. Then yes."_

 

That's just, isn't it?

 

What else  _did_  he expect?

 


End file.
